SW:TOR ( StarWars The Old Republic) Heavily Story based, with more than your traditional random roll lock on generic systems. The companion's influencing the story is also a bit nice to hear about.
They even have NPCs that can shoot you through walls, just like Star Wars Galaxies. lol
Yeah, but SWG did a lot of other things oh so right, and that was like 6 years ago. Not many games tote very good space combat on top of a ground-based game with epic crafting, housing and class structure (in it's heyday). That was a revolutionary game in it's own right that people refuse to acknowledge past whatever shallow experiences they had in-game without trying any of the good stuff out. People who only cared about grinding missed out on space combat and all the "little things" wasted their time with the game.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4 Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I read most of it, really I did, but I am feeling the urge to stretch this part out.
Aion does flying, yes, but I think we are both in the same camp of feeling it was not put to real use. I kept hearing about it's arboreal approach to levels in part to the ability to fly, but the end result was a game you spend entirely on the ground, besides the 20 or so seconds you can actually stay adrift. I think they made it that way because aerial combat didn't turn out so well, and by limiting the time you can spend flying they expected it to change into an escape/ambush tactic alone. A huge waste imo.
Heh, that was me bing smugly ironic, heh.
No really, I couldn't stand the grind so I didn't manage to get to Abyss (PvP from level 1, remember ) However, folks playing it say that aerial combat works there. That could be considered a bit of an evolutionary change that might resurface in some future game... like jetpacs in SWToR maybe, dunno, didn't Boba Fett have one of those? Fully adding a third dimension to mmo gameplay might not be something that'll influence every game coming up but it is a kind of a new thing (deep-space sims excepted ofc).
I hope to see more games with the "rotating skill deck" or similar that The chronicles of Spellborn used, It was pretty fun and required some strategy on building your skills. Too bad about the game. Hopefully when/if it goes Ftp it'll bring some life back into it.
The sad fact is that every MMO in the past has had either differing expectations from gamers (sometimes many different expectations) and that the companies hawking those MMO's have over hyped them...even the good ones. When players get into the game, they have one expectation or another and when the game is not that "perfect world", they automatically began to be disappointed. That is not going to change for any of those games that are going in the future at this point. Any game that anyone might list will come with it those exact same sorts of differing expectations. And once again, when launched, those games will go through the same sort of negative critique as all of there preceding brethren.
With that said, I will not judge ANY future MMO until I have had a chance to play it. Only then will I KNOW what is going to be. In other words, don't listen to hype and don't get your own expectations so high that you will be disappointed in the end.
SW:TOR ( StarWars The Old Republic) Heavily Story based, with more than your traditional random roll lock on generic systems. The companion's influencing the story is also a bit nice to hear about.
They even have NPCs that can shoot you through walls, just like Star Wars Galaxies. lol
Yeah, but SWG did a lot of other things oh so right, and that was like 6 years ago. Not many games tote very good space combat on top of a ground-based game with epic crafting, housing and class structure (in it's heyday). That was a revolutionary game in it's own right that people refuse to acknowledge past whatever shallow experiences they had in-game without trying any of the good stuff out. People who only cared about grinding missed out on space combat and all the "little things" wasted their time with the game.
I agree with you. I just found it funny what the similarity between the two games turned out to be so far.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.- -And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Why I added SW:TOR on the list is becuase it's making the attempt to actually introduce a story centric MMO which would be a welcome change from the crud errand boy quest system thats been plauging MMO's.
Which has been done with FFXI already and will continue with FFXIV aswell.
SW:TOR ( StarWars The Old Republic) Heavily Story based, with more than your traditional random roll lock on generic systems. The companion's influencing the story is also a bit nice to hear about.
They even have NPCs that can shoot you through walls, just like Star Wars Galaxies. lol
Yeah, but SWG did a lot of other things oh so right, and that was like 6 years ago. Not many games tote very good space combat on top of a ground-based game with epic crafting, housing and class structure (in it's heyday). That was a revolutionary game in it's own right that people refuse to acknowledge past whatever shallow experiences they had in-game without trying any of the good stuff out. People who only cared about grinding missed out on space combat and all the "little things" wasted their time with the game.
I agree with you. I just found it funny what the similarity between the two games turned out to be so far.
SWG ultimately did fix that "shoot through the ground" thing (though, I have no idea how long it took them to do so), so hopefully it'll be fixed in SWTOR, too, preferably before release.
I am inclined to agree that whether SWTOR will be evolutionary is questionable. I suspect it will be a polished, Star Warsy (obviously) version of WoW, which is exactly what I expected it to be like, and I presume many will, too, if they're paying attention.
If there is any area in which it will be truly "evolutionary" or "revolutionary," then it will be as the first fully voiced MMO (with an apparent focus on story). C'mon: what's NOT to like about that, even if you find the other aspects of it underwhelming?
SW:TOR ( StarWars The Old Republic) Heavily Story based, with more than your traditional random roll lock on generic systems. The companion's influencing the story is also a bit nice to hear about.
They even have NPCs that can shoot you through walls, just like Star Wars Galaxies. lol
I hit the panel, expecting a quick loading screen, but I was surprised to find myself passing right through it and into the next room. The instancing had occurred without me even realizing it. The only confirmation I had that I was in a special instance was the system notification of my instance ID in the bottom right corner.
After battling through the soldiers to reach my few objectives, I entered the control tower and disabled the main targeting system. With everything complete, I had a new pop-up on my screen: call my quest-giver via holo-com.
I clicked that button and my character pulled out a small holo-device -- the classic Star Warstelephone. A little hologram of my quest-giver appeared, and it triggered a cinematic dialogue sequence right then and there, advancing me to the next stage of the quest. I thought this feature was very cool, and it gave a seamless transition into the next quest phase. It's very much in the vein of Star Wars to use a device like this instead of hoofing it back to the quest-giver, and I really appreciated it.
And, of course, when all of this comes together, as it did in the hangar bay instance, the game feels as it should -- like an epic movie. That's what I'm looking for here. While the epic movie experience didn't permeate the entire gameplay session, it popped up enough that I felt satisfied.
And the game will be entirely voiced, not a heap of text that few read.
And that is just a small sampling of what I mean about SW:TOR being an evolution. SW:TOR I added to the list for it's take on the whole themepark quest grind. In just about every quest centric MMO you are reduced to an errand boy and it feels like you are simply an errand boy. SW:TOR and GW2 are both working on revamping the standard quest centric play. I did not put SW:TOR on the list for it's combat mechanics etc.
And do keep in mind that was simply a demo.
As for others in this thread that keep responding with it's the same old thing.... I don't see how you can overlook exactly whats coming our way mechanic wise. Far more interactive worlds, far more interactive combat systems.
DCUO - You can pick up a truck and throw it at an opponent, your opponent can in turn catch it...... thats not something we can do in MMO's currently. Acrobatics in DCUO allows you to run faster and jump higher but the innovation is that you can grab on to the side of a building and continue going. Super speed in DCUO allows you to run up the side of a building but the moment you stop moving you lose momentum and fall.
GW2 - Some classes will be able to summon objects, other players and you can actually pick those objects up off the ground and use them. They even discussed how there is a mob that will throw it's sword at you and if it misses you it will stick in the ground and you can pick it up. The mission and quest as well as exploration aspect of GW2 and the effect you can have on the world which everyone will see and experience is something else thats just not done currently.
Every game I listed is bringing something new to the genre and a lot of these are fairly big changes from what we are use to.
MMO's are getting close to single player games in what can be done mechanic and systems wise and that IS evolution for MMO's.
Why I added SW:TOR on the list is becuase it's making the attempt to actually introduce a story centric MMO which would be a welcome change from the crud errand boy quest system thats been plauging MMO's.
Which has been done with FFXI already and will continue with FFXIV aswell.
FFXI had some fun cinematics and it had some story lines but the game was a grind centric game. I played for about 5 years lol.
Why I added SW:TOR on the list is becuase it's making the attempt to actually introduce a story centric MMO which would be a welcome change from the crud errand boy quest system thats been plauging MMO's.
Which has been done with FFXI already and will continue with FFXIV aswell.
FFXI had some fun cinematics and it had some story lines but the game was a grind centric game. I played for about 5 years lol.
Level to grind, awesome storylines around that. It's kinda the only game I liked to level because you met so many people along the way.
CoP alone had a nice story, also the new missions in the past are really nice.
Why I added SW:TOR on the list is becuase it's making the attempt to actually introduce a story centric MMO which would be a welcome change from the crud errand boy quest system thats been plauging MMO's.
Which has been done with FFXI already and will continue with FFXIV aswell.
FFXI had some fun cinematics and it had some story lines but the game was a grind centric game. I played for about 5 years lol.
Level to grind, awesome storylines around that. It's kinda the only game I liked to level because you met so many people along the way.
CoP alone had a nice story, also the new missions in the past are really nice.
They were ok, I will give FFXI credit though for besiege and campaign. Those came before Wars World Quest type of system and they are definitely 2 systems I would like to see more of in future MMO's.
The genre is moving forward, take the newest games and put their feature lists side by side, these next upcoming titles are very telling on where the genre is heading. The similarities are staggering between GW2, SWTOR, TSW, FFXIV, TERA and even RIFT (a game I'm just now starting to learn about) has a similar focus on its features.
It's interesting yes: Bioware, ArenaNet and Funcom all concluded that storytelling was missing in MMO's, and have mentioned several times that story will get a far larger focus in TSW, SW TOR and GW2, 'putting the RPG back in MMORPG' as some were telling.
GW2 and Rift will have environments that will change based upon players' actions, there's a small yet unconfirmed hint that players' actions will influence the massive war in SW TOR and domination on planets.
TERA and Vindictus will progress combat mechanics.
Of course, we'll have to see how things turn out.
I find it funny though, reading through the forums here, how a number of former hype believers turned veteran sceptics. Moving from blind belief in the hype to the other end of the scale, extreme cynicism and scepticism, there's no balance in it. Reminds me of people who have had an ugly breakup saying 'they will never fall in love again and always distrust women from now on'.
I agree that we have to see and preferrably experience more in the betas from the upcoming games. Still, from what we've seen so far and the details explained about those games, it certainly looks like the MMO genre will have more progress in the next 1-2 years than we've seen the last 4-5 years.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
DCUO - You can pick up a truck and throw it at an opponent, your opponent can in turn catch it...... thats not something we can do in MMO's currently.
I mean, isn't that sad?
It's basically like the Super Mario Bros kicking a friggin turtle in the 80ies, except it's happening in 2010 and players are so starved that they go like, "OMG MMOs ARE EVOLVING!"
We're talking about evolution in MMO's, of course singleplayer games are further in certain gameplay mechanics, we won't see a Heavy Rain or Uncharted gameplay the next few years in MMO's.
As for progression in MMO combat mechanics, I think TERA and Vindictus have already shown good examples:
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
The genre is moving forward, take the newest games and put their feature lists side by side, these next upcoming titles are very telling on where the genre is heading. The similarities are staggering between GW2, SWTOR, TSW, FFXIV, TERA and even RIFT (a game I'm just now starting to learn about) has a similar focus on its features.
GW2 and Rift will have environments that will change based upon players' actions, there's a small yet unconfirmed hint that players' actions will influence the massive war in SW TOR and domination on planets.
I find it funny though, reading through the forums here, how a number of former hype believers turned veteran sceptics. Moving from blind belief in the hype to the other end of the scale, extreme cynicism and scepticism, there's no balance in it. Reminds me of people who have had an ugly breakup saying 'they will never fall in love again and always distrust women from now on'.
Please explain to me how GW2's so called evolving world, is new.
I am waiting.....
Darkfall's Developers said they had the same thing back before release.
Remember when they were talking about advanced AI, that could build their own towns and attack player towns and stuff like that.
Well how is that any different from what Arena-Net stated with GW2?
DCUO - You can pick up a truck and throw it at an opponent, your opponent can in turn catch it...... thats not something we can do in MMO's currently.
I mean, isn't that sad?
It's basically like the Super Mario Bros kicking a friggin turtle in the 80ies, except it's happening in 2010 and players are so starved that they go like, "OMG MMOs ARE EVOLVING!"
Well considering what we have been stuck with for so long lol, they really are evolving. But yes, I do agree it's sad.
We're talking about evolution in MMO's, of course singleplayer games are further in certain gameplay mechanics, we won't see a Heavy Rain or Uncharted gameplay the next few years in MMO's.
As for progression in MMO combat mechanics, I think TERA and Vindictus have already shown good examples:
I don't really see anything special about Tera's combat. I haven't seen Vindictus before but the combat looks like an action game (like Mortal Kombat), I'm actually intrigued by it.
The genre is moving forward, take the newest games and put their feature lists side by side, these next upcoming titles are very telling on where the genre is heading. The similarities are staggering between GW2, SWTOR, TSW, FFXIV, TERA and even RIFT (a game I'm just now starting to learn about) has a similar focus on its features.
GW2 and Rift will have environments that will change based upon players' actions, there's a small yet unconfirmed hint that players' actions will influence the massive war in SW TOR and domination on planets.
I find it funny though, reading through the forums here, how a number of former hype believers turned veteran sceptics. Moving from blind belief in the hype to the other end of the scale, extreme cynicism and scepticism, there's no balance in it. Reminds me of people who have had an ugly breakup saying 'they will never fall in love again and always distrust women from now on'.
Please explain to me how GW2's so called evolving world, is new.
I am waiting.....
Darkfall's Developers said they had the same thing back before release.
Remember when they were talking about advanced AI, that could build their own towns and attack player towns and stuff like that.
Well how is that any different from what Arena-Net stated with GW2?
It depends on what you mean by "new". No, it is not "new" and Guild Wars isn't the only company doing it. Thats the particular focus of the evolution of the MMO.
Just one feature in one game does not evolve an entire genre until it is deemed successful and adopted. If BioWare was the only game planning voiceovers for their game, it would be just another feature. That this feature is now become prevalent in almost every mainstream upcoming game, its a genre changer. The more companies that adopt it, the more these features become standard.
This is both a great way to push the genre forward, and to create another plateau like World of Warcraft did. So many features were adopted into a single title, that soon, every title had those features making them "clones" (eventhough not all of them were).
While what Guild Wars 2 is proposing isn't anything "new" its seldom been done correctly. Now that we have a handful of upcoming games including TOR, RIFT, and GW2 that boast world changing quests, all we can do is wait and see whether these new systems are truly an evolution of the genre, or just a clever use of buzz words and hype.
Please explain to me how GW2's so called evolving world, is new.
I am waiting.....
Darkfall's Developers said they had the same thing back before release.
Remember when they were talking about advanced AI, that could build their own towns and attack player towns and stuff like that.
Well how is that any different from what Arena-Net stated with GW2?
You can stop waiting. Why is it new? Well because it hasn't been done before in any other game. The difference between what Darkfall promised and what GW2 is promising is that GW2 will actually be based on these world changing events, because there simply won't be a "normal" as in previous MMO quest system. ANET rightly pointed out the flaws in the previous quest system used in basically every MMO so far. ANET also stated there will already be thousands of events out at launch, which makes it more than obvious that this what you call "so called evolving world" will be a REAL evolving world.
Please explain to me how GW2's so called evolving world, is new.
I am waiting.....
Darkfall's Developers said they had the same thing back before release.
Remember when they were talking about advanced AI, that could build their own towns and attack player towns and stuff like that.
Well how is that any different from what Arena-Net stated with GW2?
You can stop waiting. Why is it new? Well because it hasn't been done before in any other game. The difference between what Darkfall promised and what GW2 is promising is that GW2 will actually be based on these world changing events, because there simply won't be a "normal" as in previous MMO quest system. ANET rightly pointed out the flaws in the previous quest system used in basically every MMO so far. ANET also stated there will already be thousands of events out at launch, which makes it more than obvious that this what you call "so called evolving world" will be a REAL evolving world.
"evolving world" is subjective. Nothing out of the ordinary will happen without it being previously set by the developers. Their evolving world is based on timers, pass fail mechanics and player induced event chains, nothing of which is out of the ordinary. We know that the game hinges on the fact that event 1 will progress if unchallenged and recess if players choose to put it back. We know that every event will either pass or fail to the next event level based on what players do, or do not do.
Is this a "real" evolving world? No. This is a game. Nothing will happen that isn't planned to happen. Likewise in the implementation of Rift and TOR and their "world changing" mechanics. Call the system what it is, an open questing system.
Comments
Yeah, but SWG did a lot of other things oh so right, and that was like 6 years ago. Not many games tote very good space combat on top of a ground-based game with epic crafting, housing and class structure (in it's heyday). That was a revolutionary game in it's own right that people refuse to acknowledge past whatever shallow experiences they had in-game without trying any of the good stuff out. People who only cared about grinding missed out on space combat and all the "little things" wasted their time with the game.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Lol yea they are evolving alright .. Into a great big stinking field full of Dogpies waiting to see which pile you step into next ....
Well, then buy an xbox/ps3 and avoid the MMO genre.
"it is what it is" and you either have to accept certain games for that, or avoid them.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
Heh, that was me bing smugly ironic, heh.
No really, I couldn't stand the grind so I didn't manage to get to Abyss (PvP from level 1, remember
) However, folks playing it say that aerial combat works there. That could be considered a bit of an evolutionary change that might resurface in some future game... like jetpacs in SWToR maybe, dunno, didn't Boba Fett have one of those? Fully adding a third dimension to mmo gameplay might not be something that'll influence every game coming up but it is a kind of a new thing (deep-space sims excepted ofc).
I hope to see more games with the "rotating skill deck" or similar that The chronicles of Spellborn used, It was pretty fun and required some strategy on building your skills. Too bad about the game. Hopefully when/if it goes Ftp it'll bring some life back into it.
The sad fact is that every MMO in the past has had either differing expectations from gamers (sometimes many different expectations) and that the companies hawking those MMO's have over hyped them...even the good ones. When players get into the game, they have one expectation or another and when the game is not that "perfect world", they automatically began to be disappointed. That is not going to change for any of those games that are going in the future at this point. Any game that anyone might list will come with it those exact same sorts of differing expectations. And once again, when launched, those games will go through the same sort of negative critique as all of there preceding brethren.
With that said, I will not judge ANY future MMO until I have had a chance to play it. Only then will I KNOW what is going to be. In other words, don't listen to hype and don't get your own expectations so high that you will be disappointed in the end.
Let's party like it is 1863!
I agree with you. I just found it funny what the similarity between the two games turned out to be so far.
-Letting Derek Smart work on your game is like letting Osama bin Laden work in the White House. Something will burn.-
-And on the 8th day, man created God.-
Which has been done with FFXI already and will continue with FFXIV aswell.
SWG ultimately did fix that "shoot through the ground" thing (though, I have no idea how long it took them to do so), so hopefully it'll be fixed in SWTOR, too, preferably before release.
I am inclined to agree that whether SWTOR will be evolutionary is questionable. I suspect it will be a polished, Star Warsy (obviously) version of WoW, which is exactly what I expected it to be like, and I presume many will, too, if they're paying attention.
If there is any area in which it will be truly "evolutionary" or "revolutionary," then it will be as the first fully voiced MMO (with an apparent focus on story). C'mon: what's NOT to like about that, even if you find the other aspects of it underwhelming?
I laughed
I hit the panel, expecting a quick loading screen, but I was surprised to find myself passing right through it and into the next room. The instancing had occurred without me even realizing it. The only confirmation I had that I was in a special instance was the system notification of my instance ID in the bottom right corner.
After battling through the soldiers to reach my few objectives, I entered the control tower and disabled the main targeting system. With everything complete, I had a new pop-up on my screen: call my quest-giver via holo-com.
I clicked that button and my character pulled out a small holo-device -- the classic Star Warstelephone. A little hologram of my quest-giver appeared, and it triggered a cinematic dialogue sequence right then and there, advancing me to the next stage of the quest. I thought this feature was very cool, and it gave a seamless transition into the next quest phase. It's very much in the vein of Star Wars to use a device like this instead of hoofing it back to the quest-giver, and I really appreciated it.
And, of course, when all of this comes together, as it did in the hangar bay instance, the game feels as it should -- like an epic movie. That's what I'm looking for here. While the epic movie experience didn't permeate the entire gameplay session, it popped up enough that I felt satisfied.
And the game will be entirely voiced, not a heap of text that few read.
And that is just a small sampling of what I mean about SW:TOR being an evolution. SW:TOR I added to the list for it's take on the whole themepark quest grind. In just about every quest centric MMO you are reduced to an errand boy and it feels like you are simply an errand boy. SW:TOR and GW2 are both working on revamping the standard quest centric play. I did not put SW:TOR on the list for it's combat mechanics etc.
And do keep in mind that was simply a demo.
As for others in this thread that keep responding with it's the same old thing.... I don't see how you can overlook exactly whats coming our way mechanic wise. Far more interactive worlds, far more interactive combat systems.
DCUO - You can pick up a truck and throw it at an opponent, your opponent can in turn catch it...... thats not something we can do in MMO's currently. Acrobatics in DCUO allows you to run faster and jump higher but the innovation is that you can grab on to the side of a building and continue going. Super speed in DCUO allows you to run up the side of a building but the moment you stop moving you lose momentum and fall.
GW2 - Some classes will be able to summon objects, other players and you can actually pick those objects up off the ground and use them. They even discussed how there is a mob that will throw it's sword at you and if it misses you it will stick in the ground and you can pick it up. The mission and quest as well as exploration aspect of GW2 and the effect you can have on the world which everyone will see and experience is something else thats just not done currently.
Every game I listed is bringing something new to the genre and a lot of these are fairly big changes from what we are use to.
MMO's are getting close to single player games in what can be done mechanic and systems wise and that IS evolution for MMO's.
FFXI had some fun cinematics and it had some story lines but the game was a grind centric game. I played for about 5 years lol.
Level to grind, awesome storylines around that. It's kinda the only game I liked to level because you met so many people along the way.
CoP alone had a nice story, also the new missions in the past are really nice.
They were ok, I will give FFXI credit though for besiege and campaign. Those came before Wars World Quest type of system and they are definitely 2 systems I would like to see more of in future MMO's.
It's interesting yes: Bioware, ArenaNet and Funcom all concluded that storytelling was missing in MMO's, and have mentioned several times that story will get a far larger focus in TSW, SW TOR and GW2, 'putting the RPG back in MMORPG' as some were telling.
GW2 and Rift will have environments that will change based upon players' actions, there's a small yet unconfirmed hint that players' actions will influence the massive war in SW TOR and domination on planets.
TERA and Vindictus will progress combat mechanics.
Of course, we'll have to see how things turn out.
I find it funny though, reading through the forums here, how a number of former hype believers turned veteran sceptics. Moving from blind belief in the hype to the other end of the scale, extreme cynicism and scepticism, there's no balance in it. Reminds me of people who have had an ugly breakup saying 'they will never fall in love again and always distrust women from now on'.
I agree that we have to see and preferrably experience more in the betas from the upcoming games. Still, from what we've seen so far and the details explained about those games, it certainly looks like the MMO genre will have more progress in the next 1-2 years than we've seen the last 4-5 years.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
APB: has a GTA setting. Is that evolution to you?
SW:TOR: Looks like a typical Bioware game with a MMO mode tacked on.
Tera, Rift, DC Universe: Have yet to see anything evolutionary or revolutionary about them.
GW2: Is where it's at. The only game that promises some really evolutionary stuff imo.
Hype train -> Reality
I mean, isn't that sad?
It's basically like the Super Mario Bros kicking a friggin turtle in the 80ies, except it's happening in 2010 and players are so starved that they go like, "OMG MMOs ARE EVOLVING!"
Hype train -> Reality
We're talking about evolution in MMO's, of course singleplayer games are further in certain gameplay mechanics, we won't see a Heavy Rain or Uncharted gameplay the next few years in MMO's.
As for progression in MMO combat mechanics, I think TERA and Vindictus have already shown good examples:
TERA: Trailer
Vindictus (known as Mabinogi Heroes in Asia): Promotion Video
Vindictus gameplay action video
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Please explain to me how GW2's so called evolving world, is new.
I am waiting.....
Darkfall's Developers said they had the same thing back before release.
Remember when they were talking about advanced AI, that could build their own towns and attack player towns and stuff like that.
Well how is that any different from what Arena-Net stated with GW2?
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
Well considering what we have been stuck with for so long lol, they really are evolving. But yes, I do agree it's sad.
I don't really see anything special about Tera's combat. I haven't seen Vindictus before but the combat looks like an action game (like Mortal Kombat), I'm actually intrigued by it.
Simply put, if Anet says it, it's most likely true (yes, I'm a fanboy).
If some other company is promising the same things out of nowhere, I won't believe it until i actually played it.
Hype train -> Reality
It depends on what you mean by "new". No, it is not "new" and Guild Wars isn't the only company doing it. Thats the particular focus of the evolution of the MMO.
Just one feature in one game does not evolve an entire genre until it is deemed successful and adopted. If BioWare was the only game planning voiceovers for their game, it would be just another feature. That this feature is now become prevalent in almost every mainstream upcoming game, its a genre changer. The more companies that adopt it, the more these features become standard.
This is both a great way to push the genre forward, and to create another plateau like World of Warcraft did. So many features were adopted into a single title, that soon, every title had those features making them "clones" (eventhough not all of them were).
While what Guild Wars 2 is proposing isn't anything "new" its seldom been done correctly. Now that we have a handful of upcoming games including TOR, RIFT, and GW2 that boast world changing quests, all we can do is wait and see whether these new systems are truly an evolution of the genre, or just a clever use of buzz words and hype.
You can stop waiting. Why is it new? Well because it hasn't been done before in any other game. The difference between what Darkfall promised and what GW2 is promising is that GW2 will actually be based on these world changing events, because there simply won't be a "normal" as in previous MMO quest system. ANET rightly pointed out the flaws in the previous quest system used in basically every MMO so far. ANET also stated there will already be thousands of events out at launch, which makes it more than obvious that this what you call "so called evolving world" will be a REAL evolving world.
"evolving world" is subjective. Nothing out of the ordinary will happen without it being previously set by the developers. Their evolving world is based on timers, pass fail mechanics and player induced event chains, nothing of which is out of the ordinary. We know that the game hinges on the fact that event 1 will progress if unchallenged and recess if players choose to put it back. We know that every event will either pass or fail to the next event level based on what players do, or do not do.
Is this a "real" evolving world? No. This is a game. Nothing will happen that isn't planned to happen. Likewise in the implementation of Rift and TOR and their "world changing" mechanics. Call the system what it is, an open questing system.